LAHORE, Feb 11: The proposed Indo-Pak Trade Regulatory Authority should be formed at the earliest to increase bilateral trade in the larger interest of their people.

This was recommended by the speakers at the concluding session of a seminar on “Indo-Pak trade sustainability” at the LCCI on Saturday.

The speakers on the second day of the seminar included LCCI president Mian Shafqat Ali, Mrs Riffat Saqlain of the Lahore College for Women University, Shahid Kardar, former provincial minister, Dr Ehsan Malik and former LCCI senior vice-president Sohail Lashari.

All the speakers were of the view that the trade regulatory authority would help identify items beneficial to both the sides. They said the new body would also help promote anti-smuggling activities and suggest measures to curb this menace once for all.

It was also recommended that both the countries should allow free entry to people below 18 years and above 60 years, besides issuing them visa for the entire country instead of specific cities.

Elaborating on the benefits of trade between Pakistan and India, the speakers said it was necessary for sustainable growth of both the nations as this would promote regional integration.

They said there was a potential to increase the volume of two-way trade manifold but owing to multiple bottlenecks the target could not be achieved so far.

It was also suggested that the bilateral trade would be helpful in increasing supply and demand in the entire Saarc region for both the final and intermediate products.

The Pakistani experts said the departments concerned should prepare reforms to facilitate entrepreneurial activities by structuring comprehensive and profitable supply chains involving Indian raw material for which both countries could be better off in trading.

They said the ground realities revealed that the tall claims made by India for opening up trade with Pakistan and granting it the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status were limited to its own exports to Pakistan only and were not meant for Pakistani exporters.

They urged the Indian government to make the process of clearing Pakistani goods time barred and transparent. And, they said, the Pakistan government should ensure that the time the Indian government took to clear Pakistani products for sale in India should be the same as the Pakistan government consumed in clearing Indian goods for sale here.

It was also suggested that with the day-to-day increasing trade between the two countries there was a need to increase the number of wagons available for transportation of goods to India.

The speakers said it was equally important that trucks should be allowed to cross the border and off-loaded. And if both the sides could build bonded warehouses in which trucks could directly off-load, the trade would become hassle-free and a bigger volume of goods could be traded during the limited time.